Hello,

You want to use different mods but they are overwriting each other ?
You are at the right place ! We will start with the basics, hang on it is quite easy you will see :)

A Few Basics

First of all you need to understand that a mod is a .pak file that mainly contains .mbin and .dds files.
The .mbin files are used for configuration, and the .dds are for the textures.
When there is a conflict when using multiple mods, it means that the file(s) that is modified by a mod is also modified by another mod.
That is why some mods are released like this : "___mymod", because order is important, and therefore something is likely not going to work. Hence the importance of merge.

When having an issue, two things are to be checked :
_is the mod up to date? => if yes, go to the next step, otherwise try contacting the author.
_is the file(s) modified by the mod modified by another mod? => if yes you will have to merge if you want to keep them both.

Before going on with it, remember to backup the mods you intend to modify, if you mess up at some point you won't have to download your mods all over again if you have a backup :)

External Softs

Now for the merge, you will need only three software and a plugin :
_PSArcTool to extract the .pak
_MBINCompiler to extract the .mbin ( take the latest version )
_Notepad++ to do the merge ( take the latest version, 64 or 32 bits depending on your computer, here to check )
_Compare to simplify the merge ( again, take the latest version, 64 or 32 bits depending on your computer, here to check )

PSArcTool and MBINCompiler are not installers, so you just have to unzip them in a folder, eg "NMSEdit".
Install Notepad++, once it is installed unzip the Compare archive you have downloaded and place what is inside in a folder named ComparePlugin, that you will place in "C:\Program Files\Notepad++\plugins" or in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\plugins" for the 32 bits version.

You are done with installation ! Congrats, now let's merge the mods :)

The Merge

You have to identify the problematic file, ie the one that is used by two or more mods, just look at the page description of your mods for that : when the author says " it should work as long as no other mod modifies xxx.mbin ", note that file somewhere if you have too much mods to remember what files they modify, and do it for each mod you use, that is the only way to be sure that you won't overwrite something when installing a new mod. Then if you notice a file that is edited by two mods you have it !

Take the conflicting mods to your "NMSEdit" folder, place each one in a different subfolder, say "mod A" and "mod B". Open two windows, one in NMSEdit and one in mod A. Drop the .pak on PSArcTool.exe, it will process the mod and extract the content. Now drop the .mbin on MBINCompiler.exe, it will convert it into an editable .exml file. Do the same for the mod B.

You now should have two .exml files named alike, say GCUIGLOBALS.GLOBAL.EXML for both.
Open these files with notepad++ ( right click/open with ) and on the first file click on the 1 button on the picture below, and on the 2 for the second file :



It will generate two windows like above, where you can see the differences between the two files you have. For instance, here mod A is changing space units to conventional units and mod B is hiding the number of damages made in combat. What mod B is changing is indicated by 3, the line in the Compare NavBar which says there is a difference above in the files. What you want is to combine the two mods : you will make the changes to one of the file,( usually I pick the one that has the fewer changes to be made ), so that the merged file has its own modification but also the one that are added by the other mod.

Here, we would go higher where 3 indicates a change, and modify a value from true to false, which is the point of mod B. Only one change from mod A to B, three from B to A. In this example it does not sound like a big deal but some .exml can have hundreds or more of modifications compared to another mod, so always go with the easiest way :) 

Now you just have to save the changes, delete the old .mbin, drop your modified .exml on MBINCompiler.exe, pack you merged mod with PSArcTool.exe and you are good to go ! In our example, we modified mod A so that it does the same as mod B plus what mod A does. But mod B was only composed of one file : the one we took the modifications from. If your mod is composed of more files than just the conflicting ones, you still have to put mod B in your folder MODS, but remember to remove the files that you have taken the changes from,( ie delete them and use PSArcTool to pack a new mod B that does not contain the conflicting files).

That's it ! I hope that was clear enough, if not don't hesitate to ask in comment.

Thanks a lot for the continuous efforts of monkeyman192 for MBINCompiler, for periander's useful soft, to the notepad++ team, to pnedev for his notepad plugin and of course to Hello Games for NMS and the assets used in the picture !

Have fun :)

Methatronc